Looking ahead to Stitch N Pitch on Aug. 17

Readers of the In Stitches blogs and columns came to TD Bank Ballpark Aug. 18 last year to make chemo caps for JFK and Hunterdon medical centers. We will be back Aug. 17 this year.
Pamela MacKenzie/Staff Video

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Each year, the Somerset Patriots invite knitters and crocheters to a Stitch 'N Pitch game. This year's game is Aug. 17.(Photo: Pamela MacKenzie/Staff Photo)Buy Photo

We’ve participated in two successful Stitch-a-Thons to make purple baby hats this year, which have resulted in close to 600 hats.

In April, we collected 294 purple baby hats at the Brunswick Square Mall, and this month, we collected more than 250 at the Franklin Park Library. In both cases, the totals included hundreds of hats that you made in the weeks leading up to those events. We could not have done it without you.

Now, let’s set our sights on the annual Stitch N Pitch game with the Somerset Patriots at TD Bank Stadium on Aug. 17. This will be the third year that we will be gathering there to make chemo caps, and we will have free yarn.

Hats this year go to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the Basking Ridge section of Bernards and to Hunterdon Regional Medical Center in Raritan Township.

I’ve asked for yarn donations from two companies this year, and so far, our friends at Lion Brand again have generously agreed to supply cotton yarn for our chemo caps. Not sure what they will send, but I did ask them for a variety of colors this time.

If the other company comes through, I will tell you more about that yarn, as well.

While we wait for more details about the yarn, let’s start talking up the event with our knitting and crochet friends and see how many people we can get to commit to this happy event.

The first year we did it, 125 people bought Stitch N Pitch game tickets, including husbands and boyfriends. Last year, we had fewer people buy tickets for our section, but many other people at the game stopped by our yarn table and asked about our chemo cap project.

I was gratified to see how many people took a ball of yarn and a pattern and promised to make a hat for us. These were crafters who never read my column and didn’t know about the project until that night.

And by the way, a few people stopped by the yarn table last year to say that they loved what we were doing and could they buy a hat. Of course, we can't sell them, but we can give a few away.

Before the game started, I did promise to give a hat to one woman whose husband had cancer, but I told her I needed it as a sample until after the game. She never came back for it, and I felt really bad about that.

So this year, I’m going to have some extra hats on hand to give to cancer patients or their families. If you’d like to make some of those, please get them to me before the game.

The Somerset Patriots, the home team, will be playing the Long Island Ducks that night, and there will be fireworks after the game. The two groups named on the Patriots schedule that night for having their own sections are our Stitch N Pitch and RWJ University Hospital.

You can order tickets here, but I don't have all the details yet about group rates. Our section will be behind home plate, where the net gives us some protection from flying foul balls.

It’s also a terrific place to watch the game because you can see everything. Family members who are more interested in the game than what we are making particularly like this feature.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be reaching out to knitting groups I know throughout Central Jersey to make sure you have details about this game, and I’ll be keeping you in the loop through this column, as well.

In addition to yarn, I will have some free patterns for knitted or crocheted chemo caps to distribute at the game. These are print-outs of hat patterns that designers and yarn companies have given us permission to reprint on mycentraljersey.com/institches, and you can print them out in advance anytime.

You are not limited to these patterns, though. Feel free to use your favorite hat pattern or make up your own. Make the hats stylish and attractive. Help the patients feel as though it’s not necessarily obvious they are having infusion treatments.

If you are having trouble finding the hat patterns on our website, go to www.mycentraljersey.com/institches and find this column there. In the story, you will find links to hat patterns.

Once again, many thanks for all you are doing. I am collecting purple baby hats and chemo caps through September.

And if you are making baby blankets, I’ll take them anytime. Joan Pierson at the Division of Child Protection and Permanency said the need is immediate. When I told her some of you are working on them, she clasped her hands together as though in prayer and moved them under her chin to say thank you.